Alex Katz

Alex Katz (b. 1927, Brooklyn, New York) is an American painter who is celebrated for his iconic portraits of contemporary society and his crisp, confident articulation of colour. Pristine flat surfaces, dramatic cropping, and economy of line are hallmarks of the artist’s work. When Katz first began painting in the early 1950s, his now-signature minimal aesthetic was perceived as a reaction to Abstract Expressionism; it would later register as an anticipation of Pop Art, albeit one that ultimately outlasted the movement.

An iconoclastic painter, Katz has many imitators but remains the undisputed master of cool, composed 20th-century portraiture. His oeuvre includes more than 250 works featuring his wife Ada. Katz also frequently paints the Maine landscape where he lives much of the year. He was awarded an honourary doctorate from Colby College in 1984 and currently serves on the Colby College Museum of Art’s board of governors. In addition to his painting practice, Katz is a prolific printmaker who continues to explore three-dimensional space with sculptural cutouts, a technique first established by the artist in 1959. The subject of over 200 solo exhibitions over his career, in 2022, Katz exhibited a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.